Almost the start of summer: Part 1 (During School)

Anna's at school at the moment--I have another glorious hour left until I have to leave to get her--and I was being a total lazy-ass this morning, doing nothing in particular (and nothing I should have been doing) and perusing Pinterest and Facebook instead of being productive.

I felt a bit guilty that I wasn't getting to the things on my to-do list--editing the photos from a mini "event" shoot I did 10 days ago and creating an album layout for the funeral I shot in April--but I checked Facebook one last time to see if I could procrastinate some more. (With a 3-day weekend plus a holiday yesterday, Facebook was, unfortunately, a bit thin and slow on new content.) But before I logged off I saw the status update that a widowed friend--a woman from Minnesota or Michigan (or somewhere =)), whom I met at Camp Widow two years ago--posted about it being the fourth anniversary of her husband's death. I wrote a quick comment, but my heart skipped a beat or two just before I posted the comment.



It was that "coming up on 6 years" bit that caught me off guard, that slammed my heart into my throat for a moment.

Six. Years.

My god.

Six years is a number I associate with Alicia, because it was the death anniversary she passed last summer. Six is how old my child is.

It's not how long my husband has been dead.

Ouch.

Yet, of course, it is how long he's been dead…or how long it'll be in one more short month.

Unlike years past--meaning, every awful year of widowhood until last summer--I'm not dreading the summer. Just like last year, the weather has been so miserable and awful and depressing here in Portland this spring--endless rain and cold temperatures all winter and "spring," and I don't think we've had a single 80-degree day yet (and we've only about five or six days with sunshine and in the 70s since last September…yes, SEPTEMBER)--that I'm dying for summer and summer weather. (And yes, my poor word choice/pun was intentional.) And fortunately, last summer was quite nice…so I don't mind the thought of summer too much this year.

Plus, it means NO STINKIN' SCHOOL!! Yea!

While it's been great seeing what all Anna has learned at kindergarten this year and getting the (short, small, measly, maddening) daily breaks from only-parenting-all-the-time, I haven't exactly made it a secret that this year has totally sucked too. Or at least the schedule and adjusting to it have sucked. I'm excited that she's in school and that we made it to that long-dreamed-for finish line where she entered public school, but damn, this past year has been tough. Really tough.

She has seven more days of school left after today; her last day is a week from this Thursday. Only seven more times to have to struggle with getting her into bed at 8pm and getting myself up at 6:30am and her out the door by 7:35am. THANK. GOD. And after those seven days, there's no more of this 3-hour crap for school: she's full-day starting in September…from 7:45 am until 2:00 in the glorious afternoon, every. blessed. day.

I still can't believe that the school year is almost over. We made it. It's been ugly and exhausting and depressing for me…but it's almost over.

But….

There's still one frighteningly HUGE thing hanging over my head: I still don't have a job. I have about $2000 to my name--which will last me all of a month or so, maybe a few weeks more--and aside from what we get in Social Security each month (a rather paltry amount that just barely covers doesn't even fully cover our mortgage, health insurance premiums, and nonnegotiable bills each month…forget eating or anything superfluous), I have no idea what I'm going to do.

I've been trying to hide from that awareness all month. For the month of May, I've played a lot of Angry Birds, read a lot of books, took a lot of naps, watched a lot of TV and movies, spent a lot of time with Anna…all to hide from the scariness of our reality. And when I hide, I don't get out much. I don't see many people, which only makes the isolation and scariness worse.

Yeah. Great combination.

And did I mention that I haven't even really been looking for any jobs--much less applying? Nope. Haven't done that either. Or I've looked a few times, and the results were so depressing that it sent me back to bed for another "nap." I don't have the qualifications for the one or two jobs that sounded exciting (or at least interesting), or else ones that sounded appealing could never be an option for me as a single-income family because the hourly salary was way too low (and those are just the ones that posted a salary range). And the ones I am supposedly qualified for--the more traditional technical writing jobs--sounded awful…or else I don't have experience with their required software. All in all, it was downright depressing. No wonder I went back to bed every time I looked.

But also, when it came down to it, I think at heart, I just wanted to be home with my child until the end of this school year…no matter how bad it was for me--or how poor of a financial decision it was. I couldn't really admit it fully to myself, though, or accept and acknowledge what it would actually mean…in both financial and emotional costs. One part of my head (heart?) could say that I just wanted to skate by the best I could until the end of the school year, and then figure it all out. The other part of my head--the one constantly reminding me that I was being careless and stupid--screamed at me that I needed to be searching for a job and APPLYING for them NOW, a month ago, three months ago….

But trying to find a job and change our whole schedule and flow of things--a schedule and flow that was challenging enough as it was, with adjusting to school life this year--with a few short months left in the school year just seemed silly to me. Arranging and paying for daycare for up to seven hours a day seemed dumb. I knew in my head that, yes, the life insurance money was gone--or would be by the end of June--and that all of the security and options I had from that money would be gone…but for the life of me, I couldn't do anything about it. I suppose I didn't really want to. I wanted to be home with Anna after school each day. At 11:00 freaking AM.

So here we are. Seven school days away from the end of the school year. A month away from full-on panic. (Who am I kidding, though? I've been in a full-on panic all month. It's why I've been hiding and why I've been on the verge of tears so many times, so regularly.) …And a month and twelve days away from the sixth anniversary of my husband's death.

Sixth.

Sigh. I don't really have any large emotion toward the upcoming death anniversaries anymore. They're generally just another day, no different from any other day. I still try to plan something fun for the day so we (ahem, *I*) have something to look forward to for that day…but this year, that whole thing called working calls the day into one big question mark. I have no idea what we'll do this year, mostly because I assume I'll be needing to work that day, whatever that job might be. And yea, yea, hooray [insert a whole load of sarcasm there]: the death anniversary will fall on a Tuesday again this year…the same day of the week that he died on. I hope that coincidence doesn't mess with my head too much this year.

Then again, if I've been a bit of a mess these past three months, ever since the beginning of March--or at least a much bigger mess than usual for recent years--past history tells me that I ought to be wary of how I'll react this summer. Two years ago, I was stressed out and worn out from our move, going back to work full-time, and having to work from home, and unfortunately, it all coalesced into grief coming out more than it had previously. I know from everything I've survived these past five six years that grief will often make an unexpected appearance when I'm under a lot of stress and other icky things…and the last three months have been nothing but stress and ickiness. Doesn't exactly give me a warm fuzzy feeling about approaching the death anniversary and this summer…but I'm going to hold onto hope that, since last summer was unremarkable and nice, perhaps this one won't (totally?) suck too. (How's that for optimism? ;o))

But still. Writing "it'll be six years in another short month" for the first time caught me unaware. It was weird. The math and the balance of it all always makes me shake my head. Six years since I was married, since I last saw the man that I still love so dearly. Yet the balance sheet that says I was only married for nineteen fucking months always makes those scales tip so drastically, with a loud, resounding thunk. Six years of pining away for a man who was only here for nineteen months.

Thunk.

(I mean, gosh, you were only married for a year and a half, and it's been six years now. Shouldn't you be over it already?!? I can hear in my head.)

Okay, yes, yes...I know that he was here for much longer than nineteen months and that our eleven-year history prior to his death changes that balance a lot. And even if I'd only met Charley for the first time in October of 2002 when we got back together and started dating again--even if I'd only had less than three years with my late husband--he was my husband, the father of my child. We had dreams of a lifetime together, of growing old together. There's no tangible weight that can be placed on the scales to counterbalance those hopes and dreams. If anything, I'm grieving I've grieved the loss of those hopes and dreams; the loss of our future children, the family I'd always pictured and wanted, that I worked for for myself; the loss of everything I was and held dear. And that's why those scales always tip with that echoing clunk. Yes, it was only nineteen months, but the weight of everything I lost when Charley died tips it so completely out of balance that I'm now left on a platform suspended above a whole lot of nothingness, wondering to myself:

Where on earth do I go from here?

Graphic from here

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And that was where I had to stop writing, at 10:40 this morning, so I could leave to go pick up Anna from school. But I kept writing after we got home…except it ended up turning into a completely different post. So for that second part, see here.